


but to sweetly hold your hand

by embellished



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Mutual Masturbation, Pushing Daisies AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-23
Updated: 2014-06-23
Packaged: 2018-02-05 20:58:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1832029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/embellished/pseuds/embellished
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The facts are these: Robb Stark bakes pies and wakes the dead. It is a gift with a few simple rules - first touch, life. Second touch, dead again - forever. And if Robb keeps a dead thing alive for more than a minute, something else has to die in its place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	but to sweetly hold your hand

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve tried to keep the references to Ramsay as vague as possible, and there’s nothing sexual. But he is present in the story and I figure it’s best to warn ahead, just in case. Also there is off-screen minor character death, and on-screen major character re-life. But then it’s a Pushing Daisies AU, I guess you probably expected that.

On the face of it, Robb Stark seems to have a reasonably average life.

He is precisely twenty-seven years, sixteen weeks and four days old. He is close to his family. He enjoys reading fantasy novels, playing complicated strategy board games, and taking his dog Grey Wind for long walks in the park. He owns a pie shop in the little town of Nord du Nord, where he bakes pies and serves coffee alongside his only employee, Dacey Mormont – a fiercely organised woman who is, truth be told, better at running the Pie Hole than Robb is himself. He is kind and honest and handsome, and nobody who met him would ever guess he has a terrible secret.

He can wake the dead. 

It is a skill with a few specific rules. Touch a dead thing once, alive. Touch a dead thing twice, dead again – forever. And if Robb kept a dead thing alive for more than a minute, something else had to die in its place.

This touch was a gift given to him, but not by anyone in particular. There was no box, no manufacturer’s warranty, no way to return to sender. Throughout Robb’s life it has caused more problems than it has solved, and his crippling fear of being discovered and dissected by an army of scientists has led to him avoiding close social attachments altogether. 

In fact, the sole keeper of the pie-maker’s secret is his brother, Jon Snow. 

A private investigator of the highest calibre, Jon’s hobbies include solving crimes, catching bad guys, getting involved with forceful women, and angsting about his past. And, when things get especially stressful, knitting.

He likes to joke that he’s in the PI game for the money and the dames – and it’s true that he has an appreciation for both. But it’s also much more than that. Adopted into the Stark household as a baby, amidst whispers and hastily hushed rumours, Jon has never known the truth about where he came from. And though he’ll never admit it, even to himself, he likes solving mysteries in other people’s lives to make up for that one incomplete file that sits locked away in the bottom drawer of his desk. The seemingly unsolvable puzzle that causes him so many sleepless nights. 

The identity of his birth parents.

Jon’s determination to succeed – to do for others what he could never do for himself – has always made him an excellent detective. In all his years as a PI, he’s never given up on a case. To him, every one was personal, and he’d do whatever it took to bring closure to his clients.

Back in the early days of his career, that had meant long weeks of legwork. Endless interviews with loved ones who never seemed to tell the whole truth. Interminable hours spent on stakeout watching absolutely nothing happen. Jon had so regularly found himself chasing his tail that he’d often lamented the fact he couldn’t simply ask murder victims who had killed them. So when Jon had seen Robb accidentally revive the turkey before one family Christmas dinner, and the whole story had come tumbling out, he’d quickly seen the potential for a business partnership. And as Robb had long wanted to find a way to use his ability to help others, they’d struck an agreement.

Whenever Jon was hired to uncover information on someone’s mysterious demise, he and Robb would visit the morgue together. Robb would resurrect the dead just long enough for Jon to ask the important question – whodunnit – then Robb would zap them again. Simple. There were no loose ends, no weeks of wasted time sifting through the victim’s life history, and Jon quickly made a name for himself as the best in his field. More clients came in and Jon raised his fee. Robb got a cut, the dead got justice, and everyone was happy. It was an efficient, effective system, and it was how they always worked.

Until one case changed everything.

-

It’s precisely 10.44am when Jon strides into the Pie Hole. The bell over the door jingles as he glances around the room and, seeing Robb tidying up behind the counter, Jon immediately strides over. 

“Put down the tea towel,” he says. “We’ve got a job.”

Robb sighs, looking around the diner with something like wistful longing. He would very much like to reply that yes, he does have a job. He has pies in his oven and customers sitting at his tables and a man coming later to fix his cappuccino machine. He has a nice, normal job that makes people smile – unlike his little side project, which he knows very well would make people grab their torches and pitchforks if they had even the slightest hint of what was going on.

Not for the first time, he thinks of how much simpler his life would be if he didn’t have this gift – curse – talent. He could go on trips that weren’t to the city morgue. He could give the Pie Hole the attention it deserved. He could have a relationship without the weight of his secret dragging them down, and then maybe he wouldn’t have to go home to an empty apartment every night.

But he doesn’t say any of this. All he says is, “Can we go a bit later? The repairman is finally meant to be coming in to have a look at the coffee machine and I really ought to be here…”

Jon shakes his head. “Nope, sorry. This one can’t wait – the guy’s going in the ground this afternoon. We need to hustle if we’re gonna make it in time.”

“But –”

Jon just fixes him with a steely stare and taps his watch twice. Robb’s shoulders slump in defeat. With a sidelong glance at his cappuccino maker – which hasn’t produced froth in weeks, no matter how sweetly Dacey cajoled it – Robb sighs again. He knows any further argument is pointless. Once Jon commits to a case he pursues it with complete focus and determination, and he doesn’t let things like previously scheduled appointments stand in his way. 

“Fine,” he relents. “I’ll reschedule, and I’m sure Dacey won’t mind looking after the shop. Again. So, what’s the story?”

Jon shakes his head. “No time for details now,” he says, already taking two steps towards the exit. “The short version is that a guy was strangled on a cruise ship and thrown overboard. They fished him out and now his sister is offering me fifty grand for information on who did it. That’s where you come in, Mr Ghost Whisperer, and that’s where _we_ leave. Like, right now, because we have to get to the funeral parlour before he goes six feet under. Okay?”

He jerks his head significantly at the front door, and Robb raises both hands in defeat. “Okay, okay. Let’s go then.”

And throwing his tea towel at Dacey – who catches it one-handed without even looking away from the customer she’s serving. It’s possible she’s grown used to this kind of thing. It’s also possible Robb needs to give her a raise – Robb ducks out from behind the counter and follows Jon out the door.

-

Standing in the lobby of the funeral home, Jon casts his gaze around. He’s convinced the manager to give them ten minutes alone with the body, and now they’re just looking for the right room. 

“The Ocean View room,” Jon mutters to himself, then turns on his heel and sets off down a corridor. 

Robb follows, noticing two other chapels as he passes by. Both have stands propped up in front of the door, displaying posters with the deceased’s photo and their name printed tastefully in cursive type. This is conspicuously absent from the room they’re heading to, and it makes Robb realise something important.

“Hey, Jon,” he says, as Jon’s fingers close around the doorknob and turn. “What’s this guy’s name?”

“Greyjoy. Theon Greyjoy,” Jon replies. 

He pushes the door open, revealing a short hall with several rows of empty seats. There’s a stained glass window high in the far wall, and through it the late-morning sun spills blue and green light across an ornate wooden coffin. Arrangements of white lilies stand in every corner, and all in all the room has a feeling of quiet dignity. 

But Robb doesn’t see any of this. He’s staring at Jon, his mind refusing to process what Jon’s just said. He feels all the air in the corridor suddenly dry up. His lungs burn, his heart crashes against his ribcage. 

“Theon Greyjoy?” he repeats slowly.

“Yeah. His sister’s name’s Asha. They come from a town near the sea, but actually they grew up not far from – _oh_.” He turns to Robb with an expression of dawning horror. “ _Theon_. Robb, shit, I’m sorry. I forgot…”

And really, Robb can’t blame him. Jon and Theon had never gotten along, and as an awkward teenager Jon had stayed out of Theon’s way as much as he could. But Robb – Robb could never forget. Theon had been his best friend.

-

Robb was twelve years, forty-two weeks and three days old when they met. It was the dead of winter and all the Stark kids were out in their front yard making snowmen – or, in Sansa’s case, a snow _lady_ – when the moving van pulled up across the road. A man got out of the driver’s side and strode immediately up to the house, yelling something over his shoulder. Ten seconds later the passenger door opened and a teenage boy shoved his way out. He stalked to the back of the van and, leaning sullenly against the door, glanced up and down the road like he was waiting for someone.

Robb was just thinking he should go over and greet him when it happened. Arya scooped up a handful of snow, ran to the edge of the road, and in one swift motion lobbed it straight across. 

It hit their new neighbour square in the cheek, leaving behind a red mark on his skin and little white flecks in his shaggy dark hair. For a long moment he just stood there, stunned, while Arya whooped and giggled and performed a little victory dance. Robb knew he should tell her off – it wasn’t polite to throw snowballs at people you didn’t even know – but he was frozen to the spot. It was like he was waiting for something, though he wasn’t sure what. 

Then the boy smiled. And Robb felt the tiniest shift inside his body, like all of a sudden it was easier to breathe. 

He ran across the street then, and an epic snowfight ensued. When it was over, the new guy came up to Robb and grinned. 

“Theon,” he said, cheeks pink from the cold and a dusting of snow still stuck in his hair.

“Robb.”

They shook hands, and from that moment on they were inseparable. 

Theon was a few years older, and Robb idolised him. Whether it was sneaking off to go to concerts, or stealing Theon’s older brothers’ IDs to get into adult films, Robb would follow Theon anywhere. So it was no surprise that on the day Theon got his driver’s licence and subsequently ‘borrowed’ his sister’s car, Robb was only too happy to hop into the passenger’s seat. 

Theon drove them to the seaside. It was still early spring, so the beach was deserted, and they ran amok with no one to see or care. They kicked up sand and threatened to throw each other into the icy water and ate enough greasy fish and chips from the nearby shop to feel as if they might puke.

And then, just as the sun was setting and Robb was thinking they should probably get home, Theon sprinted down to the shoreline. A huge wave was approaching, and Robb watched as Theon was consumed by the foamy water, laughing wildly the whole time. Then he turned back to face Robb, dripping wet and slipping on the shifting sand but grinning just the same, and that was it. That was the second Robb realised that, _oh_. 

He was in love. 

Everything seemed so vivid all of a sudden – the salt in the air, the gritty sand between his toes, his pulse racing with terror and excitement in equal measure. All were thrown into sharp focus as his universe realigned itself. _He was in love with his best friend._

He went home that night with the knowledge tucked away safely in the deep corners of his heart. He didn’t know exactly what to do with it, but the world suddenly seemed open in a way it never had before – like everything was new and anything was possible. It was hard to believe that things could go so wrong.

Precisely twenty-seven days after Robb’s epiphany at the beach, he was at Theon’s place watching a movie when he was struck with a kind of inexplicable madness. He didn’t know if it was what they were watching, or the few sips of Theon’s father’s bourbon he’d drunk, or just something about the way Theon looked when he raked his hand through his hair to get it out of his eyes, but out of nowhere his body seemed to move without his brain’s consent. His veins fizzed with want and he smashed his mouth against Theon’s like he was powerless to do anything else. And amazingly, Theon kissed him back – hot and hard and desperate.

“I’ve been wanting to do that for so long,” Theon whispered when they pulled apart for breath. And Robb smiled, and Theon laughed, and then they kissed again.

They were still making out on the couch fifteen minutes later when Balon walked in.

The rest is a blur of yelling, of _no son of mine_ and Robb being kicked out of the house. Three days later Theon was shipped off to some strict naval academy where they didn’t allow correspondence with the outside world, and Robb never heard from him again. 

But he never forgot Theon, and deep down he’d always hoped they’d see each other once more. 

Just, not like this. 

“Can I… can I do this alone, Jon?” Robb asks, his voice carefully neutral.

Jon looks at him sharply. It’s not the way they operate. After all, Jon is the investigator – he should see the body, he should ask the questions. But taking one look at Robb’s face, he swallows his protests and nods. 

“Do what you have to do, Robb. Just try to get some info for the case,” is all he says, before standing aside to let Robb enter the room. 

-

Robb looks down into the coffin, at the boy he’d known so many years ago. Theon’s skin is unnaturally pale – his laughing eyes closed; his smirking lips a thin, sad line. Robb thinks he should be used to death by now, that he should have known what to expect. But no part of him was prepared for this. 

He exhales. Steels himself. And then reaching out his hand, he gently touches a fingertip to Theon’s cheek. 

Theon sits up instantly, a sudden heaving breath blooming in his chest, inflating his lungs and propelling him upright. His gaze lands on Robb, and for the tiniest fraction of a moment Robb sees his eyebrows draw together in confusion. But then, incredibly, recognition sparks in his eyes. 

“Robb Stark,” he breathes. “I’ve missed you.”

Robb’s lips twitch into a sad sort of smile. He’s about to say _I’ve missed you too_ , but Theon has just noticed where he is, and what he’s sitting in, and he cuts him off. 

“Um, Robb,” he says, “why am I in a coffin? Am I dead? Are you dead? What’s going on?”

Biting his lip, Robb looks down at the floor. He usually leaves breaking the bad news to Jon. He is not good at it at the best of times, and this is most definitely not the best of times. “You were killed on a cruise ship,” he replies, carefully ignoring the stickier of Theon’s questions. “I’m so sorry. I wish – it doesn’t matter what I wish. I want to help you. Can you remember anything about what happened?”

Theon runs his hand through his hair as he thinks, just as he always used to do when they were younger. Robb’s heart aches. “I don’t think so,” he says. “I mean, I was just walking on deck at night, making my way back to my room, then someone attacked me from behind. I didn’t see who did it, but they smashed my head against the wall, the fucker. And then, I guess, well…” He trails off, indicating the coffin and the funeral home around them.

“Can you think of anyone on board who might have wanted to hurt you?”

Theon considers it. “Well, there was this one twat who was strutting round like he owned the place, being a little bitch whenever he didn’t get his own way, so I told him he wasn’t king on the boat and kicked his arse at shuffleboard until he ran off crying. And then there was this old man who was with his whole family, like all six hundred of them, and he was trying to set me up with one of his granddaughters. I told him I didn’t swing that way, and even if I did I wouldn’t go near any of his descendants ‘cause they were all fuck-ugly. So, I guess they were both pretty pissed off, but I don’t think they’d actually kill me…”

Robb unconsciously shoves his hands deep into his pockets. “You haven’t changed at all, Theon.”

Theon shrugs, smiles a little. “I don’t think you have either. And even though I’m dead, or whatever, I’m glad I got to see you, one last time.”

Inside his pockets, Robb knows the second hand on his watch is moving too quickly back to sixty. He can feel the _tick tick tick_ creeping up his spine and knows without looking that the minute’s almost up. Knows he should run a finger down the familiar line of Theon’s jaw, or maybe press a final kiss to his lips.

But he can’t seem to move at all.

“What if you didn’t have to be dead?”

-

Three hours later, they’re back at the Pie Hole. 

“I can _not_ believe you did this, Robb,” Jon hisses. They’re sitting in one of their favourite booths, and Robb is a bit worried. Jon is so mad he’s actually let the ice cream melt on his slice of triple berry à la mode. As Jon never lets his pie sit on his plate for more than thirty seconds for any reason short of his own mortal peril, Robb knows this does not bode well. He stays silent and tries to look contrite while Jon continues his rant. 

“A bad idea just felt better about itself. A stupid idea just made a friend. Even aside from, you know, what this will _mean_ , Theon is all over the news right now – someone is going to recognise him. What exactly do you think you’re going to do, lock him up in your flat upstairs?”

“Um, not exactly…” Robb starts. But he doesn’t need to finish because at that moment, Theon enters the room. He’s wearing an old trench coat of Robb’s and a large, dark pair of sunglasses. Jon’s eyes nearly pop of his head.

“Oh, very subtle Robb,” he says, his words so heavy with sarcasm Robb’s surprised Jon can get them out of his mouth. “You can’t seriously –”

But he’s cut off as Theon slides into the booth next to him. Jon clenches his jaw and gives Robb a look that clearly says _this conversation is not over_. But for the moment Robb has earned a reprieve, so he turns to Theon and smiles, once again, at seeing him alive and well. Even if he does look a little ridiculous wearing a coat that is clearly too big for him in the middle of a bright, sunny day.

“I’m sorry about the clothes,” he says. “We’ll go round to your place tomorrow to pick up your stuff. Unless you think your family would have already done that?”

“They won’t have,” Theon replies darkly. “They didn’t care what happened to me when I was alive, I don’t think that’s likely to change just because I’m dead.”

“Your sister is paying me to investigate your death, you know,” Jon puts in, stabbing at an errant blackberry. He’s clearly still looking for a fight, but Theon just waves it off.

“Too little too late, sis. Can’t make amends with a dead man. But speaking of which,” he adds, “what exactly is the deal with that? I mean, am I a zombie?”

“Of course not,” Robb replies quickly. The moral and ethical, practical and philosophical implications of his gift are something he’s had cause to think about a lot over the years, and when he’d first found out what he could do he’d spent a fair amount of time on research. It wasn’t terribly helpful, but he can at least answer Theon’s question. “Zombies are reanimated corpses with only the basest of brain function. They can move and eat, but they can’t feel. They’re not conscious, and they don’t have souls. They’re the walking dead, whereas you’re… alive again.”

“And how does that work?” Theon asks, leaning forward in his seat. “I mean, I get that you can apparently bring people back from the grave – good party trick, by the way. But, uh, how?”

Robb looks down at the table, and Jon digs into his slice of pie. “I have no idea, actually. All I know is that I touch a dead thing once, it comes to life. But I touch it again, and it’s dead. Forever. I can use my skill to help Jon with his investigations, but you’re the only one I’ve… _re-alived_ for more than a minute –”

Robb clamps his mouth shut. He shouldn’t have said that. He expects Theon to jump on it, to ask why only a minute, isn’t that awfully arbitrary? Because it _is_ , this terrible gift of his that takes just as much as it gives. But Robb doesn’t want to explain that yet. Doesn’t want to go into the nature of the sacrifice he just made, and how a perfectly innocent person is now dead because Robb wanted to keep Theon in his life.

But amazingly, Theon doesn’t mention it. He just gazes at Robb with an unreadable look on his face. “I’m really the only person you saved?”

“Yep,” Robb replies, relieved by the surprising direction of conversation. “Well, you and Grey Wind. He was hit by a truck not long after you left, and I just couldn’t stand losing both my best friends.”

Theon looks across the restaurant at the huge, wolf-like dog lying on the floor. He turns back to Robb with a grin. “I thought he looked familiar!” He whistles, and Grey Wind unfolds himself, comes loping over. Theon pets him behind the ears, and Grey Wind whines appreciatively, thumps his tail against the ground. He doesn’t get scratches and belly rubs nearly as much as he’d like, these days.

Smoothing his hand over Grey Wind’s head one last time, Theon sits up. He looks thoughtful.

“So you can’t touch him?” he asks.

Robb shakes his head.

“And you can’t touch me?”

Robb shakes his head again, feeling more than a little apprehensive about where this is going.

“Nothing? Not ever? No kissing or hugging or fucking?”

“No,” Robb replies with a resigned sigh, as Jon just rolls his eyes in disgust at the both of them. “I can’t even touch you through the holes in your jumper or you’ll… you know. Be right back where I found you.”

For a long moment there’s silence as Robb and Theon consider this prospect, and Jon savours the last of his pie.

“Well,” Theon says eventually. “I guess it’s just got to be mutual masturbation, then.”

Robb flushes hot red. Jon chokes on a blueberry.

-

That evening, Robb and Theon return to Robb’s apartment above the diner. Theon cooks dinner, they have leftover pie for dessert, and then Robb goes to deal with their sleeping situation as Theon heads to the bathroom to take the first shower. 

Robb whistles a little as he lays down fresh sheets on his bed, hums as he rearranges cushions to set himself up for a night on the couch. It’s nice to focus on the small, everyday tasks – rather than the huge, life-changing thing he did less than twelve hours ago – and he’s just wondering if he’ll need an extra blanket when he notices the sound of running water has stopped.

The bathroom door opens, and Robb turns to ask if the shower was okay – his hot water system is notoriously temperamental and water temperatures swing wildly from scalding to freezing. But when his gaze lands on Theon the words dry up in his throat. 

Theon’s standing in the hall with his towel wrapped low around his hips, and Robb can’t help but stare. The body before him is so familiar, but the years apart have made it new as well. There are new freckles, new marks – including a long scar that curves over his ribs – and everything is just… more. 

Robb’s eyes rake down Theon’s exposed skin. He wants to explore this new territory – _god_ , he wants it so desperately. The need to touch shivers through his bones, curls in his lungs and makes it impossible to breathe. His fingers itch to press Theon up against the wall and map everything he knows and everything he doesn’t. He jerks his hands into fists and crosses his arms tightly at his chest, but he still can’t look away.

“I wish you could stay with me,” Theon murmurs, jerking his head towards the bedroom as he hitches up his towel. Robb swallows hard.

“I know. Me too,” he replies, and the words are so inadequate. They’re just one drop in the ocean of pure _want_ that spreads between them. 

They stare at each other across the room for a long minute before Robb finally drops his gaze. 

“Anyway, goodnight,” he says.

Theon smiles. There’s so much he wants to say but he doesn’t know how to begin, so he settles for just, “Goodnight, Robb.”

And he disappears into the bedroom.

-

It’s several hours later, in the dead of the night, when Theon wakes to a nightmare of ice-grey eyes and drowning. Heart thundering and his lungs desperately heaving in air, he knows he won’t sleep again anytime soon.

He slips out of the bedroom and into the hall. From the doorway he can see Robb sprawled over the couch, arms and legs and blankets cast in all directions, and his panic starts to ease.

He walks across the room silently, lowers himself to the floor. Grey Wind pads over and Theon wraps his arms around the dog’s warm, steady body. Taking this as all the encouragement he needs, Grey Wind climbs into Theon’s lap and then licks a slobbery stripe up his neck, jaw, cheek. 

Theon exhales a soft laugh and rubs Grey Wind behind his ears. Then, raising his hand, he hesitantly stretches out towards Robb. He traces a finger through the air above Robb’s face, imagining he can feel its contours. The dip between his eyebrows, the slight bump in the bridge of his nose, the soft curve of his lips. Theon’s fingers hover only centimetres from Robb’s skin. The air between them feels charged, somehow – electricity bouncing in that inch between life and death. 

They’ll never touch again. It seems unimaginable.

Theon pulls his hand away, unable to bear the excruciating pull of their unfulfillable closeness. This is Robb’s real sacrifice. Not sex, not blow jobs, not even kissing. Just the casual reassurance of human contact with someone you care about. And Robb knowingly gave that up so Theon could have a second chance at life.

His heart feels so full – he’s acutely aware of every beat, every rush of blood. He can’t believe it can feel so alive when only hours ago it was still as a stone. He looks at Robb again and has to smile. It’s then he knows that even if he had somewhere else to go, there’s nowhere else he’d rather be. 

-

Over the next week, they find ways to make it work. Jon goes to pick up Theon’s belongings (though not without a lot of complaining and a half-hour rant to Robb about his life choices) and together they install them in Robb’s apartment. Then they tackle the hard stuff.

They institute a system to avoid touching accidentally, calling to each other as they come and go and crossing rooms in a kind of complicated dance. Robb says he’s happy to stay on the couch – as the flat only has one bedroom and Theon is entitled to his privacy – but Theon insists on them sleeping together in whatever way is left to them. Robb is secretly pleased, so they buy another bed and set it up on the opposite side of his bedroom. 

On the fourth night they christen it in the manner Theon suggested.

For a long time they just stare at each other across the gap between their beds, both knowing what they want to happen but unsure how to ask for it. There are a couple of false starts and plenty of nervous laughter before Theon finally moves first, pulling his T-shirt over his head and shoving down his boxers until they disappear into the tangle of his sheets. He lets Robb look his fill, then says hoarsely, “Your turn. Take off your clothes.”

And Robb does. Clumsily he shucks his pyjamas, balling them up and tossing them onto the floor. Then he’s naked and Theon’s hot gaze is dragging down his exposed skin and Robb can’t help but blush when he feels himself getting hard from just the intensity of Theon’s stare. 

Theon exhales shakily, his palm sliding down his chest to rest low on his stomach. His fingernails scritch restlessly through the coarse hair beneath his belly button, like his fingers are overeager to begin. His eyes skitter over Robb’s body like he wants to drink in everything at once and he can’t decide where to direct his attention. Finally his gaze locks with Robb’s own, and Robb can see his pupils are blown wide and dark. 

“I used to dream about giving you your first blow job,” Theon says, voice pitched low like he’s sharing a secret. “I’d think about how I’d get on my knees and take your dick in my mouth and watch you come undone, knowing no one else had ever done that for you.”

Robb’s hand leaps to his cock at that – at the thought of them together, really together – and Theon’s lips twitch into a soft grin.

“I imagined it so many times – how you’d look, the way you’d moan my name. Would you…” he swallows thickly, “would you show me now?”

And god, Robb thinks wildly, what a stupid question. Theon hasn’t kissed him, hasn’t touched him, his breath hasn’t even ghosted across Robb’s skin, and still Robb is as hard as he’s ever been in his life. 

He spreads his thighs wider and starts to stroke himself. He’s watching Theon and he can see that Theon is watching him right back, eyes hungry as his own hand works hard and fast between his legs. It’s overwhelming – Theon’s heated stare and the shiny pink of his cock slipping between his fingers – but Robb can’t look away for even a second. Sounds fill the room, skin on skin and hitching, panting breaths, and Robb finds his hand moving quick and quicker as electricity starts to spark through his veins. 

“Do you,” Theon begins, voice cracked like glass, “do you ever fuck yourself on your fingers? Cause I’d like to see that as well…”

And suddenly it’s all too much. Robb arches off the bed and comes, Theon’s name a choked gasp torn from his throat. 

Theon follows soon after, white stripes painting his hand and chest as he moans loud and wrecked. And then they just lie there for a while, breathing hard and staring at the ceiling. 

“So,” Robb says finally, flipping onto his side to look at Theon.

Theon mirrors his movement and grins, warm and bright. “So. That was pretty fantastic, right?”

And, yeah. It kind of was. Maybe their situation isn’t ideal, but they both know it could be worse. And if ever Robb’s fingers ache to touch, if his lips want to kiss, if just for one moment he wishes he could get close enough to feel Theon’s hot breath on his skin as he moans Robb’s name, he reminds himself of the alternative. If this is what it costs to have Theon in his life, he will pay it gladly.

-

And as the weeks pass by, Robb is constantly amazed by how well Theon fits into his life. He’s like a puzzle piece Robb didn’t know he was missing, and Robb’s not sure how he ever got by without him. He loves having Theon in his apartment; loves being able to look up and see him right there in the opposite bed, or slumped on the couch, or in the kitchen in front of the stove. 

He turns out to be a great cook, actually, and he works happily beside Robb in the Pie Hole. He even starts baking his own line of tarts – which he names Swee’tarts, after sadly discarding Hot and Tarty and Tarts of Darkness – and the customers go crazy for them. 

In fact, if Robb’s being honest, the customers just go crazy for Theon in general. He’s handsome and cheeky and inoffensively flirtatious, and Robb often finds himself looking on in fond bewilderment as Theon charms his way into a ten-dollar tip for a five-dollar slice of pie. He’s even charmed the cappuccino machine into liking him, and his incredible espressos have attracted a whole new clientele to their little establishment. They have an early rush now, businessmen and women getting their caffeine fix before work, and the Pie Hole is doing better than it ever has. Its success is so obvious that Dacey even pulls Robb aside to inform him that whatever he’s paying Theon, it’s not nearly enough. 

But Robb wouldn’t care if the diner were bare, as long as Theon was there, chatting away happily on the other side of the bench, or casually wiping down tables.

He’s doing just that one morning when he sidles over to the booth where Jon’s sitting, brooding darkly. Flicking a cloth to dust away some loose crumbs, he catches the corner of a file and it falls to the floor. Jon swoops down to get it – but Theon reaches it first. 

“Exciting case?” he asks, flipping through its pages.

Jon grits his teeth. “That is meant to be confidential, Dead Boy,” he replies. 

Theon rolls his eyes and is just opening his mouth to make a cutting reply when Robb wanders over. “Come on, Jon,” he says. “What can it hurt? How is telling Theon about the case any different than telling me?”

Jon huffs crossly, but he can’t seem to come up with a good response to that. “Fine,” he says, “these are the facts. A man is dead. Looks like a hunting trip gone wrong, but his best friend insists it must have been murder – and he’s paying me to prove it.” 

Smirking a little at having won, Theon riffles through the pages again, studying them closely. Then he says, “The wife did it. Or, she set him up to have an accident, anyway.”

Jon frowns – but more in confusion than irritation. “How did you know she was my main suspect?”

Flipping the file shut, Theon drops into the seat next to Jon. “I didn’t, but it’s just the obvious conclusion isn’t it? When we’re talking about a rich husband, the wife tends to have to most to gain from their death. More specifically though, it says here the victim was known for womanising – like, by everybody. Worst kept secret in town. But his wife still packs him lunches when he goes hunting? That’s awfully forgiving.”

“Maybe she was a forgiving person?” Robb offers. 

Jon shakes his head. “She was an ice queen. Gave me goosebumps when I interviewed her – I’ve never met a less friendly woman. And there wasn’t a single photo of the two of them on display in their house, so I’d put money on a pretty unhappy marriage. Not that that makes her a murderer, of course.” He turns back to Theon. “What else?”

Theon shrugs. “I don’t know, that just seems strange to me. Oh, and the testimonies say he was a drinker, and the witnesses on the scene say he was slurring and weaving like he’d had a few too many. But according to this report his blood alcohol was only point-oh-four. That’d be nothing to a drunken bastard like this. It could even be what was left in his system if he had a piss-up the night before. I’ve had a point-oh-eight and I could still say the alphabet backwards.”

Jon starts fishing in his pocket for a pen to write this down, but it seems like Theon’s only getting started. He jabs his index finger into the front of the file. “Plus, I know hunters. They’ll drink a keg all by themselves once they’ve got their kill, but no expert shot – which this guy apparently was – would go out drinking in the field. It’s too dangerous. You can blow your friend’s head off. So,” he says, taking a deep breath to conclude his argument, “my bet is the wife drugged his lunch with something that wouldn’t show up in a basic blood test, and waited for the boar to do the rest of the work.”

There’s silence for a moment, as Jon looks at Theon with something like newfound respect. “Okay,” he says eventually, “I’ll go investigate the wife, then.”

Theon looks proud of himself – and from that moment on, Jon and Robb’s detective duo becomes a trio. Robb’s life is as close to perfect as it’s been in a long time, and the only thing spoiling it (aside from the obvious fact that he can’t touch the man he loves) is that they can’t seem to solve Theon’s murder. Theon’s told Jon everything he can think of about his time on the cruise ship, but every lead runs into a dead end.

Then one day, things change. 

It’s the middle of the afternoon when Robb and Theon spot Jon coming into the diner. It’s not unusual for Jon to visit the Pie Hole – in fact he comes often, for a slice of cherry or banana cream to go, or to pick up Robb and Theon so they can “examine” a corpse at the coroner’s office. But this day he sits at a booth, spreads out a series of manila folders, and beckons them over.

Theon drops the tea towel he was using to dry dishes and ambles over. Sliding into the seat next to Jon, he grins. 

“So, Nancy Drew, have you figured out who murdered me yet?”

Jon glares at him, but he waits to answer until Robb has finished serving a customer and joined them both on the other side of the booth. 

“No I have not, and keep your damn voice down. I have, however, found a new lead.” He pauses to let this sink in, then continues, “I talked to one of the cleaners on the ship, asked her if there were any suspicious characters, anybody she remembers, that sort of thing. Anyway, she didn’t want to talk at first, but eventually she let it slip that there was this one man a few of her colleagues complained about. Making inappropriate comments, lurking where he shouldn’t be lurking. I’m going to check him out.”

Robb glances over at Theon and they both kind of nod-shrug. It’s not much, but it’s not nothing.

“What’s his name?” Robb asks, turning back to Jon.

“Ramsay Bolton,” Jon replies easily, then adds, “and seeing as how I’m already here, could I get a slice of apple pie?” 

But Robb doesn’t hear. In front of him all the colour has drained from Theon’s face, replaced by a look of sudden, complete terror. Robb’s never seen Theon look like that before, and it cuts through him like a knife. 

“It’s him,” Theon says softly, almost to himself. “Of course it’s him.”

“Theon, what is it?” Robb asks, leaning worriedly across the table. “Do you know this guy?”

Still white as a sheet, Theon smiles a rueful little smile. 

“I guess you could say that,” he says slowly, then locks his eyes on Robb’s. “I have a past, Robb, that I’m not proud of. But he – Ramsay – was a part of it.”

Jon and Robb glance at each other. “Tell us about him,” Jon says, in his best gentle-but-insistent investigator voice.

“But only if you want to,” Robb hastens to add.

Jon cuts a glare in Robb’s direction, but Theon just shakes his head in resignation. “It’s okay. I knew it would come out eventually.”

And taking a deep breath, he begins. “When I left the academy my dad sent me to, I sort of went off the rails a bit. I loved to go out and start shit and make the world feel how fucking angry I was, you know? And one night – I think I was tagging some abandoned buildings – I met Ramsay. He was wild, wilder than me even, and we became… well, not friends. Ramsay doesn’t have friends. But at the time I was alone, and I thought we were allies, I guess, in our war against the man.”

Swallowing hard, he takes a deep breath before continuing. “But the more time I spent with him, the more I realised we were different. I was young and lost and pissed off, not that it’s an excuse. But he was… he just liked to fuck people up because he got off on watching them suffer. He had these girls – he could always pull them – and…” Theon stops, shudders, doesn’t seem able to finish the sentence. He’s quiet for a moment, then he shakes his head – as if to clear the memories – and continues. “Anyway, I saw what he was, and I tried to get out. He broke my fingers when I told him I was done – said if I tried to leave him again he’d break my neck.”

He holds up his left hand, and Robb notices for the first time that the last three fingers are slightly crooked – bent to one side as if the bones were snapped clean and couldn’t knit together quite right. 

“The fingers made me smarter,” Theon goes on, slipping his hand back down under the table and out of sight. “I planned, the next time, and one day I was able to get away. But I had to disappear completely. I lost contact with my family – not that that was a huge loss. I dropped my name. You’re actually the first people to call me Theon in years…”

He tries to grin, but it falls flat. Robb feels a flare of hatred like he’s never felt before in his life, icy cold and terrible.

“I’ll kill him,” he breathes, and is surprised to find that he really would. 

He supposes, considering his gift, he technically has killed before. If you looked at it the wrong way you might even call him a serial killer. But that was only putting the dead back where they belonged, or on extremely rare occasions, letting fate’s random lottery pick someone off so that someone else could live. But that was just a trick of fortune. This man – this _monster_ – that Theon is describing… given the chance, Robb would hunt him down.

Theon has other ideas.

“No, Robb!” Theon lunges halfway across the table as if he’s going to grab Robb, then catches himself halfway. Slumping back into his seat, he shakes his head. “Please, Robb, I don’t want you to think things like that. You don’t know how dangerous he is. Ramsay has taken everything from me, I can’t let him take you too.”

Theon looks so desperate, so pale and scared, that Robb has to nod. It feels unfair, and inadequate, but what other choice does he have? He just wishes there were something he could do, some sign he could give that he was always and unquestioningly by Theon’s side. 

Reaching across the table, he takes Jon’s right hand in his.

“What’s this?” Jon asks immediately, staring down at their hands with wide, alarmed eyes.

“Just, please, Jon,” Robb says, looking first at Jon’s free hand, and then at Theon’s. “Please.”

It must be a sign of the tension at the table, but with a long-suffering sigh Jon grabs Theon’s hand in his left. Finally connected, even through this medium, Robb smiles at Theon and Theon smiles a little back. They both squeeze Jon’s hands at exactly the same time, and that’s when Jon decides enough is enough. 

Dropping their hands like dead weights onto the table, and twitching his fingers like he wants to wash the whole moment off them, Jon clears his throat uncomfortably.

“Okay. Okay, I’m going to go find this guy now. Just investigate him,” he adds, holding up a hand in anticipation of Theon’s protests. “It’s my job, you know. I’ve got to find the guy who killed you, bring justice down upon him.”

“And he wants fifty grand from your sister,” Robb says.

Theon actually laughs.

-

Jon had never expected that it would be easy to track Ramsay down – after all, the man was a criminal and criminals generally didn’t like to be found. But at the same time, he hadn’t anticipated that it would be this difficult either. He’d spoken to Ramsay’s father’s assistant – apparently Roose Bolton was off looking for Ramsay himself, and wasn’t likely to be of any help – and obtained a last-known address. But when he’d turned up the few items of suspiciously-stained furniture Ramsay seemed to own were all covered in dust, and it was obvious nobody had lived there in some time.

He’d unearthed a few of Ramsay’s friends – for want of a better term – and they’d reluctantly offered a few suggestions as to where Ramsay liked to go when he wasn’t at home. Seedy clubs, the dog track, a cabin way out in the woods – Jon tried not to think _where no one can hear you scream_. All dead ends. Nobody had heard from Ramsay since before the cruise. Jon somehow doubted that was a coincidence. What if Ramsay had hopped off the ship at some distant port and never re-embarked? Known he’d eventually be pinned for Theon’s murder and decided to lay low overseas – possibly forever?

Still, Jon refuses to give up. People don’t just disappear, and even when they try they invariably leave a trail behind. A receipt, a phone call, a fleeting image on security footage. All Jon has to do is find it. 

But while Jon drives from city to city, chasing every lead like a metaphorical bloodhound chasing a scent, the Ocean View room at the Nord du Nord funeral home is beginning to stink – literally. It starts as a slight waft every now and then, gone too fast to really identify. But it soon develops into a thick, all-pervasive stench that rolls through the air and is impossible to avoid.

It is the smell of rotting meat. Of decomposition.

It is a very real problem. The undertaker, a fat man by the name of Mr Septon, has a hard time explaining the odour to the recently bereaved. He has to repeatedly apologise and assure them of his company’s professionalism, and their dedication to their departed loved one. Funeral homes may deal in a lot of death, but they certainly shouldn’t _smell_ like it, and Mr Septon fires first one cleaning crew and then another before he accepts that maybe something is seriously wrong.

So one Wednesday night, after the doors are shut and locked, Mr Septon goes searching. A thorough sweep of the chapels tells him what his cleaners have been saying for weeks – there’s nothing there that could be causing the smell. He heads downstairs but the basement is spotless too, and with a heavy sigh he accepts that it must be what he’s really suspected all along – something’s died in the roof space. An animal has found its way in and then perished, causing the awful stench that’s now pervading his entire establishment.

Getting out a ladder and a flashlight, he wriggles through the manhole in the ceiling. It’s a tight squeeze but he makes it and, balancing carefully on two parallel beams to ensure he doesn’t fall straight through the plaster, he switches on his torch and casts a beam of light around. 

He’s decided to begin his search above the Ocean View room, as that was where the odour had first become apparent. It’s a hunch that proves to be good, as Mr Septon rounds a supporting beam and nearly drops his flashlight when he sees exactly what’s been causing the smell.

Because he was right – it is a dead thing. 

But it’s not a rat, or a trapped bird. 

It’s a man.

-

On Thursday morning, Jon sits in his office, feet propped up on his expensive wooden desk, passing the phone from one hand to the other

He’s been looking into Ramsay Bolton for weeks now. He’s chased every lead he could think of and still come up with nothing, and he’s starting to run out of ideas. If Jon didn’t know better he’d say that Bolton simply vanished into thin air. 

He sighs heavily, gazing at the phone’s handset with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. It’s beginning to feel like he’s got only one option left – to call his ex-girlfriend. 

Ygritte. 

They’d dated some years earlier after he’d met her on a case (technically she’d been a suspect in an extremely complicated heist, but Jon prefers to gloss over that part when he can), and had parted ways relatively amicably when she’d moved south and he’d stayed put. Of course Jon had known from the start that it was never going to work out, as for the most part Jon’s work involved upholding the law, and Ygritte’s hobbies were often of questionable legality, if not outright criminal.

But what made her unsuitable as a girlfriend made her invaluable as a source of information. She had _connections_ – with criminals, with gangs, with people who possessed certain unorthodox skills – and she kept her ear to the ground. She heard things, and was always happy to share them – for a price. 

But still Jon is putting off calling. Because while she knows things he doesn’t, she’s also very fond of rubbing it in. 

Pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers, Jon sighs. He knows he’s out of options. This is his last chance to get closure for Theon – and closer to the fifty thousand dollars from his sister. He’ll just have to deal with Ygritte, and the way she laughs _you know nothing, Jon Snow._

Dialling her number from memory, the call diverts to voicemail after one ring. 

“It’s Y. Talk to me,” her message chirps, so Jon does. He tells her who he’s looking for – though he doesn’t say why – and asks her to get in contact with any information. Then he hangs up and hopes like hell he’s done the right thing.

\- 

As it happens, he doesn’t have to wait long to find out.

The next day Jon comes back from lunch with a smile on his face. He’d gone to his favourite Chinese restaurant – where they’d given him a side of six dumplings at no extra charge – and then he’d swung by the Pie Hole to pick up a slice of pecan to enjoy later in the afternoon. 

He’s just sat down at his desk and put the boxed slice of pie in his drawer when Ygritte materialises out of the shadows, bumping the door shut with her hip. She’s wearing a pencil skirt and a blouse with one too many buttons undone. Her wildfire hair is pulled into a chignon at her neck and her devastatingly high heels click against the floor as she walks. It’s all very secretary-chic, but Jon isn’t sure he likes it. She doesn’t look like the Ygritte he knew at all, and he has to assume it’s some kind of disguise. 

But then she hops up on the edge of his desk and flashes him a smile that’s all teeth, and, no. He was wrong. She looks exactly the same.

“Oh, Jon Snow,” she says, seeming to relish all the rounded vowels in his name. “You really do know nothing.”

Reaching into her bra, she extracts a square of grey paper that she unfolds and smooths out in front of him. It’s a news piece from yesterday’s edition of the local paper, and Jon takes in the headline – _Dead Man Found in Funeral Home_ , boy someone had fun with that one – before skimming the rest of the article. Next to him Ygritte swings her legs merrily, something like triumph glittering in her eyes. 

“That’s your guy,” she says. “Can’t believe you missed him, actually – right here under your nose the whole time.”

Jon can’t believe what he’s reading either, but for a whole different set of reasons.

“Thanks Ygritte,” he says distractedly, not looking up. “I owe you one.”

“You owe me several,” she clarifies, “but this one was so easy you can consider it a freebie.”

Slipping off the desk, she straightens her skirt. “Anyway, I’d best be going. I have places to be, obviously,” she says, gesturing to her clothes. 

She sashays over to the door, making sure Jon enjoys the view of her leaving, but at the last minute she pauses. Her long, manicured fingernails tap thoughtfully against the door handle and then she suddenly swivels back. 

“Look, Jon,” she begins, her voice unusually hesitant. “I don’t know why you were after Ramsay, but you’re best off staying out of it. The guy was bad news.”

Jon snorts. “Bit late for that now,” he mutters. It’s mostly to himself, but Ygritte seems to hear and her voice takes on an edge of urgency. 

“Seriously, Jon. I heard a rumour when I was digging. His father thinks his death was murder. He wants to investigate. And Ramsay was bad, but Roose is worse. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll get out now.”

And with that, she’s gone. 

-

Jon spends a lot of time thinking about Ygritte’s parting words. He wishes they could just get out – that it could be as easy as Ygritte made it sound. But if what he assumes is true, then they are as _in_ as it’s possible to get. And now he has to decide how much of what he knows he is going to tell Robb and Theon. 

He knows Theon has a right to hear about Ramsay – to put what sounds like a truly awful chapter of his life behind him – but does he need to know the rest? Where he was, and how he died? Does Robb? Jon puzzles over it for hours, until the clock on his desk reads three-thirty.

Three-thirty is pie time, and that slice of pecan is calling to him from his drawer. He’s just reaching down to retrieve it when the door swings forcefully open and a man marches into his office. 

Jon is stunned. Nobody interrupts pie time. When he’s not in the field, his schedule is cleared from three-thirty to three-forty-five – every day, no exceptions – and his receptionist is under strict instructions to redirect his calls. People do not simply waltz into his office during pie time – or at any other time, for that matter. They wait outside to be invited in. 

He’s too surprised to speak, or even greet this strange new client, but the man doesn’t seem to notice. He simply drops into a chair, looking for all the world as if it’s _his_ office, and his pale eyes meet Jon’s. Jon has to suppress the urge to shiver. 

“My name is Roose Bolton,” he says, icy grey gaze still locked on Jon. “I’m trying to find out who killed my son, Ramsay.”

This is everything Ygritte warned him away from dropped right into his lap. He has to take a steadying breath to compose himself. “Well, Mr Bolton,” he says, folding his hands in front of him like the consummate professional he is. “Should you employ the services of the Night’s Watch Detective Agency, you can rest assured that I will do my utmost to solve the mystery of your son’s death. I have an excellent clearance rate on my cases, and you can trust that –”

He stops. The corner of Roose’s mouth has twitched into something like a smile, and Jon’s been a detective long enough to know he’s not going to like what he hears next. 

Leaning forward, Roose’s voice is low but perfectly clear. “The thing is, Mr Snow, I’ve already hired an investigator. He doesn’t have your glowing record, but he still discovered something rather curious. Apparently you and your adoptive brother Robb Stark were at the Nord du Nord funeral parlour at around the time my son died. And you made a special deal with the undertaker to be allowed ten minutes alone in the room above which Ramsay was found. While several witnesses say you never entered the room, and in fact spent your time handing out business cards to mourners, your brother did. And he was seen to leave in a hurried manner.”

Roose straightens in the chair again and folds his arms across his chest. “Now, Mr Snow,” he says, almost conversationally. “Wouldn’t you say that’s _interesting?_ ”

-

The bell above the door tinkles, and both Robb and Theon look up to see Jon standing in the entrance. He’s got a long, unfinished scarf looped around his neck, and two knitting needles stuck in his front pocket. He also seems paler than usual, and when he comes over he’s missing his usual purposeful stride.

“I found Ramsay,” is all he says, immediately followed by, “give me all the peach pie and ice cream you have.”

Theon grabs the dish of pie – missing only two slices – and Robb pulls an almost-full tub of ice cream from the freezer. Together they pile into a corner booth, far away from any customers who might overhear their conversation.

“You found him? Did you speak to him? Are you all right?” Theon asks in rapid-fire succession. His voice is tight and his eyes dart across Jon’s face, trying to read what happened from the crease between Jon’s eyebrows, the downward angle of his lips. Theon’s uncharacteristic concern for Jon can only hint at his own experiences with Ramsay, and Robb feels hatred like he’s never known before coil in his guts.

“I’m fine,” Jon replies flatly, shaking his head. He pulls the pie towards him and stares down at it for a moment before sticking his fork in. “But Ramsay isn’t. He’s dead.”

“Dead?” Theon repeats faintly, sagging back into his seat. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. Ygritte – a source of mine – told me first, but then his father came to my office too. He confirmed her information. And he believes the death was, uh, suspicious.”

Theon doesn’t seem to hear. He’s staring at the ice cream as it slowly melts, apparently lost in his own thoughts. Robb frowns at him worriedly, then looks at Jon, who’s brought out his knitting needles and is adding row upon row to his scarf.

“What’s suspicious?” Robb asks, trying to snap him out of it and bring some level of normality back to this conversation.

Jon stops knitting, lays the needles down on the table. There’s something heavy in his gaze as he meets Robb’s. “He didn’t have a mark on him, and the coroner can’t pin down a cause of death. And there was where he was found…”

“Where was that?”

Jon looks graver than ever. “Up in the ceiling of the Nord du Nord funeral parlour. Right above the room Theon’s casket was in, as it happens. And guess how long they think he’d been there before he was finally found?”

His gaze flicks pointedly toward Theon for a fraction of a second, and Robb suddenly realises he doesn’t have to guess – he _knows_. He feels like he’s been punched in the chest. All the air rushes from his lungs and he’s left with a sick, sucking kind of emptiness. He opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out.

But across from him, Theon seems to find his voice.

“He was there for me,” he states quietly.

Jon and Robb look at each other, but they don’t reply. 

“He was there for me,” Theon says again, stronger this time. Picking up a spoon, he stabs it into the ice cream. “The bastard fucking strangles me and throws my corpse into the ocean, but that’s not fucking good enough! He has to come back to… to…”

His eyes widen and he makes a strange strangled noise, like a half-caught sob. His hands start to shake and Robb notices the way his thumb runs compulsively up and down his crooked fingers. He feels a savage kind of elation that Ramsay is dead and that none but his father care how or why.

Hesitantly, Jon asks, “Why would he have been there, Theon? What would he have wanted to do?”

Robb wants to lean right over the table and punch Jon in the throat. Maybe he’s just doing his job, but at this point it makes no difference. The fact is that Ramsay is dead, and he and Jon know why. That is what they have to deal with. What happened beforehand no longer matters, and if the answer to Jon’s question is going to cause Theon such serious distress then it’s not worth it. 

“I don’t think we need to know that,” he says, shooting Jon a meaningful look.

But Theon takes a shaky breath and swirls his spoon through the ice cream. “I don’t know. I don’t know. He may have just been there to gloat over having won, having finally got me back after I left like he promised. Or maybe…” he pauses, then shakes his head. “You don’t want to know the other option. What he was capable of. What I saw him do to dead animals he found – or, he said he found them…”

He lapses into silence then, staring at something that nobody else can see, and Jon opens his mouth like he’s going to ask for more. Robb scowls at him and kicks him hard in the shin.

“He’s gone now,” Robb tells Theon, and feels acutely the inadequacy of his words. More than ever he aches to wrap his arms around Theon; hold him tight enough to absorb his pain, his fears and everything bad that ever happened to him. He would take it all, if only he could. “Whatever he did, he can’t do it anymore.”

“Yes, he’s gone.” Theon replies vaguely. Then suddenly something seems to connect in his brain and he glances sharply at Jon. “Wait. His father came to see you? He doesn’t want you to investigate, does he? You’re not going to get Robb to, you know, bring him back?”

His voice is high and panicked, and Robb is just about to tell him that there is no way in hell he’d ever do that – someone could hold a knife to his throat and he’d never re-alive Ramsay Bolton, not even for a minute. But he never gets the chance, because Jon speaks first.

“No, he didn’t want me to investigate. He’d already hired someone else. And what they found was that Robb and I were at the premises at around the time of Ramsay’s death. He thinks we were involved.” Jon sighs, shakes his head. “Specifically, he thinks Robb was involved. And there’s a good chance he’s following us now.”

He glances out the window at a white van parked across the road. The windows are tinted, but there’s obviously someone sitting in the driver’s seat. Theon follows his gaze, and his eyes widen at the sight of the vehicle. 

“But it wasn’t Robb! It couldn’t have been.” He whips around to look at Jon. “You have to find out who really did it. You can’t let Roose think Robb killed his son. He’ll – it’s not _safe_. He’ll come after you, Robb, and he won’t stop until he gets his revenge. I can’t let you get hurt because you got dragged into my problems.”

There’s a heavy silence at the table. “It’s not going to be that easy, Theon,” Jon says eventually, looking sadly at Robb. 

“Why not?” Theon asks, his gaze darting between them. “We’ve solved hard cases before, we can do it again. What’s the problem? Why can’t we prove Robb’s innocent?”

Jon raises his eyebrows at Robb, and Robb knows that it’s time for the truth to come out. This is Theon’s life – his re-life, even – and he has a right to hear the whole story. Even if he ends up hating Robb for it, he deserves to know. 

Robb stares at the table, unable to meet Theon’s eyes. “Because it was me,” he says.

“What?” Theon reels back. He couldn’t look more shocked if he tried. “Robb, how?”

“It wasn’t on purpose,” Robb says quickly, desperate for Theon to understand. “I’m not a, a murderer or anything. I didn’t know I’d done it until now. I didn’t even know he was _there_. It’s just.” The words stick at the back of his throat and he feels like he has to force them off his tongue. “When I brought you back to life, and kept you alive for more than a minute, someone else had to die. It’s the way it works. It’s kind of a random proximity thing, so. I guess he was nearby and, you know…”

He trails off, and Theon just stares. Jon eats his pie quietly in the corner, eyes darting watchfully between the two of them, and the silence stretches on.

“Please say something,” Robb begs, fully aware how wretched he sounds.

“You.” Theon swallows, starts again. “You knew this would happen. You knew someone else would die if you saved me. And it mightn’t have been a terrible person like Ramsay. It could have been, like, a nice old janitor, or a widowed mother of twelve? And you did it anyway?”

Robb nods, his eyes cast down.

Theon looks at him hard for a long minute, then without a word he slides out of the booth and darts out of the restaurant.

-

It takes Theon all night to get there. He didn’t have enough money on him to catch a taxi, and the cheaper public transport system took the least direct route possible and involved changing buses four times.

He finally makes it though, and in the early morning light he’s standing on the side of the road gazing up at a house he never thought he’d see again. Never wanted to see again, as far as that goes, and part of him wishes he were back in Robb’s flat now. Maybe waking up in their bedroom to see Robb smiling across the divide at him, auburn hair adorably tousled and his face crumpled from sleep.

But he can’t just stay at the Pie Hole now, not after hearing Robb’s confession and understanding what his re-life has really meant for them. Their comfortable little life is changed, now, and there’s something he has to do.

Gritting his teeth, he shoves his hands in his pockets and walks up the path to the front door. 

-

In the four days after Theon’s disappearance, Jon develops a kind of routine. At 7.05 he gets out of bed. At 7.15 he makes a cup of coffee – milk, no sugar. At 7.20 he skims the headlines in the local newspaper. And then at 7.30 he heads out to look for his brother’s boyfriend, and he doesn’t come home until after dark. 

It’s not the most enjoyable task. But whenever he’s tempted to work on one of his other, more lucrative cases, he thinks back on how the rest of that fateful evening went. The way Robb dashed out of the diner, his voice cracking as he called for Theon on the street. The look on Robb’s face when he’d returned, unable to find him. Remembering that strengthens Jon’s resolve. He’ll stick to his routine, day in, day out, for as long as it takes him to track Theon down.

But on the fifth day something different happens. When Jon’s alarm jolts him awake, Ygritte is sitting on the end of his bed. 

“What the fucking fuck, Ygritte?” he yelps, scrabbling up into a seated position. He presses a hand to his chest, trying to still his racing heart. “How did you get into my apartment?”

She bites her lip as if trying not to laugh. “There was a time you used to _love_ having me in your apartment,” she purrs, eyes sparkling with mischief as she neatly sidesteps the question. “Or have you forgotten?”

So she obviously stole a key to his front door while they were dating. Of course she did.

Jon scrubs a hand over his face and sighs heavily, weighing up the pros and cons of getting new locks installed. On the one hand, this would never happen again. On the other, well…

He gazes at her lounging comfortably at the foot of his bed, head tossed back so her bright red curls tumble over her shoulders. He kind of likes her being there, especially because she looks like his Ygritte again today. Tight leather pants, fur vest, boots – like some kind of untamed warrior goddess. Maybe he kind of likes the idea that any day he could wake up to find her there. And he knows changing the locks won’t keep her out of his life. 

She probably has a skeleton key. 

“What are you doing here?” he asks.

“I’ve got an update on your case,” she says, crossing her legs and rhythmically swinging her heel back and forth against his mattress. “Officially nobody knows this, but Roose Bolton is dead.”

Jon’s eyebrows shoot up. “Are you sure?”

She just levels a look at him. She’s always sure. 

“Word is he pissed off the wrong people,” she tells him. “People who don’t forget past slights.”

“Has anyone informed the police?” Jon feels obliged to ask, though he fully realises the absurdity of trying to act official while he’s wearing pyjamas with little white puppies printed on them. He tugs the sheets up a little higher over his chest.

Ygritte shakes her head, trying not to smile. “Though I’m sure they’ll find out soon enough. Unfortunately for them, Bolton was a pretty big player. Big players have a lot of enemies. Might be hard to narrow down the list…”

She shoots him a significant look, and Jon just nods. 

“I heard he was after you and your brother,” she says, pulling off her boots and sliding a little closer. “Seems to me that you’ve dodged a pretty serious bullet.”

Jon makes a vague noise of assent, slipping down onto his back. Quick and smooth as a panther striking, Ygritte’s on top of him, knees and hands planted on either side of his body. She brings her face close to his, so her hair tickles his cheeks. 

“So,” she says, grinning. “Want to celebrate?” 

-

That same morning, Robb wakes to find himself alone. The bed across from his is still cold and empty, and Robb feels the weight of his despair pressing him down into the mattress. 

He’s spent the last few days looking everywhere he can think of, using all the detective skills he’s picked up from Jon. He’s searched every place Theon ever mentioned enjoying, tracked down every friend Theon might have trusted with a secret like _I’m not actually dead._

Occasionally he’d stopped for a second to consider the other big worry in his life. He’d often spotted that white van from the Pie Hole, parked outside his home or trailing him by two or three car lengths as he drove around looking for Theon. He never managed to get a good look at the person behind the wheel, but he knew it had to be Roose Bolton. He was undoubtedly seeking that one last piece of evidence that would condemn Robb without question, and his threat dangled over Robb’s head like the Sword of Damocles. Robb didn’t want to think about what would happen if the sword fell, and occasionally he wondered what he was going to do to prove his innocence in a case where he was, in fact, guilty.

But his grief and concern for Theon were overwhelming, and invariably any thoughts about Roose ended up being shoved away for another day. They could all deal with him together, once they found Theon. 

But on that count he’d had no luck. After all his fruitless searching, all he’d had left was the desperate, against-all-odds kind of hope that Theon would just slip in during the night. Insinuate himself back into their life together as if nothing had happened. 

And now he doesn’t even have that. He’s at a dead end.

He sits up, cards his fingers through his hair. He has no idea where else he can look, and he knows that Theon knows how to disappear when he wants to. It’s starting to feel as though he might have to accept the conclusion he’s been avoiding – that Theon simply doesn’t want to be found. The thought is like an open chest wound.

Swallowing down sadness and disappointment, Robb kicks his legs out from under the covers. He decides to go into the Pie Hole. Work will distract him from constantly wondering where Theon is and when (not if – never if) he’ll be coming home. Besides, he needs to check on the place. Order new stock, tend to the temperamental cappuccino machine, let poor Dacey have a much-deserved day off. With so much to do, he won’t have time to worry about Theon at all. 

-

It’s a long day. Robb had always enjoyed his job before – the smell of freshly baked pies, the feel of flour on his hands, the bubbling sounds of happy customers. But it’s not the same now. His Pie Hole had become _theirs_ , and with Theon gone it looked smaller and sadder than it once had.

Robb finds himself constantly checking the clock, and at four he can’t bear it anymore. There’s nobody at his tables, the weather’s beginning to turn, and Robb can’t stand being alone with all these memories a second longer. So he closes early, grabbing the boxed pies that were set aside to go out on delivery. A drive will do him good, he thinks, trying to ignore the plastic divide he’d installed in his car so Theon could sit beside him.

Dropping off the pies takes him all over Nord du Nord, and it’s nearly an hour later when he returns. He parks on the street and is walking past the shop to go up to his flat when he suddenly spots a light on out the back. He frowns – he could have sworn he turned everything off before he left. 

Unlocking the front door, he enters the diner slowly, noticing the freshly mopped floor and all the chairs upturned on the tables. He definitely didn’t do that. Quietly, hesitantly, he makes his way towards the kitchen, running through possible explanations in his head. Did Dacey come in on her day off just to clean? Has Jon come by to cheer him up? Or has someone broken in?

Roose Bolton flashes into his mind, and Robb picks up an empty metal coffee pot in case he needs to defend himself. But as he edges around the counter towards the back of the shop it falls forgotten from his hand. 

Theon is in his kitchen.

Theon is in his kitchen, and he’s working through all the basic prep for the next day that Robb couldn’t bring himself to face. Something suddenly unfurls in Robb’s chest, and let lets out a noise halfway between a gasp and a sob.

“Theon,” he breathes. “I’m so glad you’re here. I’m so glad you’re back.”

Theon grins, swipes a floury hand across his face. He leaves a white mark on his cheek that Robb longs to brush away. “I’m glad to _be_ back,” he replies. “I haven’t had a piece of pie in five days, I think I was starting to get withdrawal symptoms.”

Robb lets out a little huff of laughter. He isn’t sure if he should ask, but the words tumble out of his mouth before he can stop them. “Where have you been?”

For a long moment Theon is silent, thinking over the last couple of days. Showing up at his sister’s home. Asha’s shock on opening the door, the way her eyes had widened as the colour leached from her face – a kind of weakness he’d rarely seen in her. She’d poured herself three fingers of scotch, he’d explained his reappearance by lying that he was in the witness protection program, and she’d poured a glass for him too. And as they’d drunk their way through the rest of the bottle he’d told her, finally, about Ramsay, and Roose, and how he was threatening Theon’s new life with Robb. 

She’d had so many questions, but it seemed like in the end it all came down to one – _but you’re happy now, aren’t you?_ He remembers her strangely fierce hug as he’d left, and her final words to him. 

_“I’ll make it right, Theon, I promise.”_

Theon knows his sister. He knows the kinds of people she associates with, and what they’re capable of doing under the guise of what’s _right_. But Robb’s not the only one who can make sacrifices.

He doesn’t say any of this though. What he says is simply, “I went to see my sister. I knew Roose would never have let up on you of his own accord, and Asha… well, she’s a part of that world, and she’s scary as fuck. I figured if she had a word to Bolton she could make him back off.” 

Robb blinks. “You went back to your old life – asked a favour of the family you wanted to leave behind – risked exposing yourself – for me?”

“Of course,” Theon replies, like it should be obvious.

Robb doesn’t know what to say. He can only smile at the fact that the boy whose life he saved has saved his right back.

He approaches Theon shyly, hands in pockets. Scuffing the toe of his shoe into the flour on the floor, he smiles a little uncertainly. He knows there’s something he has to say.

“I’m sorry, Theon. I’m sorry I lied to you – or, if I didn’t lie, I certainly didn’t tell you the whole truth. And I should have. I understand if you need some time, especially considering, you know, the Ramsay thing, and my role in it. But I just want you to know that even though I did what I did without thinking, if I had the choice I would do it all over again. I don’t regret it – because how could I regret something that brought you back into my life. And I know that’s selfish and it probably makes me a bad person and I’m sorry for that too, but –”

He cuts off when he sees Theon shaking his head.

“Never apologise to me, Robb Stark. You gave me my life back, in every way. I can go anywhere, do anything, without checking the shadows for Ramsay fucking Bolton. I can finally choose where I want to be.”

“Oh.” Robb drops his gaze to the floor. He feels all the air rush out of his lungs and a hollow, sick sort of feeling spread through his chest.

He’s not sure what he expected, but it wasn’t this. Maybe he should have done, considering all that’s been stacked against them. Maybe he should have anticipated that eventually Theon would want to find someone whose skin he could touch, whose very presence didn’t put Theon in mortal danger every minute of every day. Still, he never thought Theon would leave. He knows it’s selfish, and self-centred, but after all they’ve been through, he can’t imagine his life without Theon. And he doesn’t know how Theon could be imagining a life without him.

However, in the back of his mind is everything he knows about the boy he’s loved for half a lifetime. Theon has lived basically his whole life in a cage created by other people, and Robb didn’t bring him back to be just another gatekeeper. Now that he’d finally found his freedom, Robb couldn’t – wouldn’t – be the one to tie him down. He loves Theon, honestly and with everything he has, and he wants him live the kind of life he should have had all along. 

So he supposes there’s nothing else for it. This is where he lets Theon go. Again. 

He’s trying to find the words to say this, to tell Theon it’s okay and he understands, when Theon speaks first.

“And I choose to be here. Robb Stark, I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather spend my second chance than right here with you.”

Robb looks up again, quick as lightning, and Theon grins at him. Grabbing a piece of industrial cling film from the counter, Theon whips it up between them and crushes his mouth against Robb’s. Robb exhales a short, surprised wuff of air, and presses his palms to his thighs. 

He wishes he could wind his fingers in Theon’s hair, or run his thumb along Theon’s cheekbone, or even just drag him close and closer until there’s no space left between them at all. But he can’t. This is what he has, and as long as it’s with Theon it’s enough. So he just smiles, and closes his eyes, and loses himself in the feeling of Theon’s lips on his for the first time in far too long.

After a kiss that is far less awkward and far more passionate than it should have been with a sheet of plastic between them, Theon pulls away. 

“By the way,” he says, “when I was out, I bought a few things…”

Producing a shopping bag from behind him, he upends it over the bench between them. Rolls of plastic sheeting, a bright purple vibrator, a box of latex gloves, and a large bottle of lube come crashing onto the benchtop. Robb laughs, sudden and bright, and Theon’s smirk slides back to something softer. Snapping on one of the gloves, he reaches out to take hold of Robb’s hand.

They both sigh then, and for a moment they just stand there like that, palm to palm, fingers tightly entwined. But then Robb grins.

“Come on,” he says, giving Theon’s hand a little tug. “Let’s take all of this stuff upstairs.”

-

It’s been one week and two days since Theon returned, and Jon is outside his office fumbling with his keys. He’s come from the Pie Hole, where Theon was back behind the counter rolling out piecrusts. Which Jon would be pleased about, if it wasn’t for the nauseatingly lovestruck looks he and Robb had been sharing every thirty seconds. And when he’d commented, Theon had launched into a detailed description of the – uh, _creative_ – sex they’d enjoyed the night before, and Jon had been forced to run out the front door with his hands over his ears.

Jon can’t help but smile a little at the memory as he finally manages to unlock his office door – before he quickly catches himself and glances around to make sure nobody else would have seen. Hanging up his coat, he walks over to his desk and settles himself comfortably in his leather chair. He’s just reaching for a pen to start writing up some invoices when his eye is caught by a small envelope sitting propped against his empty coffee cup.

It’s got his name scrawled on the front. He frowns – how did it get there? Usually his mail is delivered by his secretary – then grabs it and flips it open. 

Inside there’s a cheque for fifty thousand dollars, and a note to go with it.

_It may not be the way I expected this to go, but I got what I wanted so you will too._

_Asha Greyjoy._

Jon stares at the note, thinking about justice and revenge. About Ygritte in his bedroom and _people who don’t forget past slights_. He wonders if he should look into this more, if he’s ethically bound to report his suspicions to the cops.

But then he thinks about Robb. His brother and his true family – no matter who his birth parents are – and how happy he’s been since Theon came back into his life. How they make their relationship work, despite the obstacles they face. They don’t need another one. 

He takes a book of matches out of his desk drawer and strikes one. He holds the note up to the flame, watches it curl and dissolve into ashes, then puts the cheque in his safe. He’ll deposit it later, and transfer half to Robb and Theon. Then together they can move past all of this, start a new chapter with all the fear and uncertainty behind them.

Because endings, it is known, are where we begin.


End file.
